The way you survive in the performing arts is by having a sense of your audience, and doing things which entertain and satisfy the audience, but in a more important way, cause the audience to question many things.

The world changes when there's music in it.

What happens when the music stops? Where does it go?

But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean.

Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.

One of my central maxims is how a major part of what a conductor tries to do is get a large group of people to agree on where "now" actually is.

But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together, the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests, then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us.